An intervention to improve adolescent headache self-management

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant A mobile based intervention to improve adolescentsandapos headache self management Abstract Headache pain is a common and significant problem for adolescents King et al As headaches become more frequent and severe the negative impact on happiness increases and adolescents report less satisfaction with their health and with their life Sillampaa There are a number of challenges associated with treatment including adolescentsandapos lack of consistent symptom tracking medication overuse and low self efficacy for making lifestyle changes and for communicating about headaches Self management skills training addresses these types of challenges by increasing patientsandapos self efficacy for healthful behaviors Burckhardt and while it has been found to be successful with adolescents e g Trautmann and Kroner Herwig it is not widely available We propose to develop ThinkMe a highly engaging mobile based program that will help adolescents to make connections between behaviors and symptoms The following specific aims were successfully completed as part of the Phase I investigation gather input from adolescents caregivers and experts produce content design and development plans produce the demonstration program assess whether the demonstration program is easy to navigate and relevant to adolescents and caregivers assess expertsandapos beliefs about adoption implementation and maintenance of the program Based on the results of the Phase I project the mobile based program will provide a state of the art pain tracker a andquot toolboxandquot of tailored coping strategies and evidence based self management skill building information The program will be tailored based on the adolescentandapos s demographic information how the adolescent feels each day and coping strategies that have worked in the past In this way ThinkMe will offer a maximally engaging way to help adolescents track their pain make connections between lifestyle and pain and learn key self management skills The specific aims of the Phase II are to create the program and test its efficacy in a randomized controlled trial We hypothesize that compared to adolescents in the attention control group adolescents who use ThinkMe will demonstrate increased coping decreased intensity of headaches decreased frequency of headaches and increased functioning and quality of life Secondary outcomes are that adolescents will experience decreased school absenteeism improved school functioning improved physical and psychosocial functioning and decreased health care utilization The innovation of the current proposal is delivering an individually tailored theory driven pain self management intervention that can be widely disseminated with the novel use of technology to address self management challenges associated with adolescent headaches Successful completion of the aims of this Phase II proposal has the potential to have a significant public health impact by improving health functioning and quality of life for millions of adolescents with headache PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE The innovation of the current proposal is delivering an individually tailored theory driven pain self management intervention that can be widely disseminated with the novel use of technology to address self management challenges associated with adolescent headaches Successful completion of the aims of this Phase II proposal has the potential to have a significant public health impact by improving health functioning and quality of life for millions of adolescents with headache